Preparations Update

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I made a big pot of bone broth from the Thanksgiving turkey skeleton, put it into 2 cup containers and froze them. I then took a couple roast beefs that were getting toward the end of their freezer life, cubed them and put them in the big slow cooker with some aujus. I am hoping to can them up when I get home, but that may end up in the freezer as well.
 
Picked up some various type of pumpkins that were getting past their prime. Gonna cut up a couple for holiday baking, take seeds from the primary ones I want to keep for sure. The other will get set in rows in the garden to rot out this winter and self seed for next summer. I should be rolling in pumpkins this time next year.
 
Lots of grocery specials today...flour at 20 cents a lb, sugar at 25 cents a pound, cream cheese blocks at 99 cents each, store brand peanut butter at 99 cents each. You bet I stocked up. Roma tomatoes were 49 cents a lb, so I bought a ton to run through the dehydrator for tomato powder. Also senior discount day at one of the stores, so an extra 10 percent off.
 
Picked up some CR123A batteries on sale (for flashlights and other items), double checked my winter preps, tested some older food stores and plan to go hit a couple fleet & farm clearance bins today. Might even go to the the drug store to see if they have any Ibuprofen or other meds in their clearance bins. Don't have as much non-prescription stores as I would like. I hate paying full price for preps.
 
This week we have started building a shed/cabin (tiny house actually) for my son. He is a disabled grown up and was living in the small city near us. I was uneasy. I really wanted him near me instead of having to drive there to get him if there was something that happens and I needed him out of there. He is "slow" so even though he can live on his own, it is better for him to be with us. My stepson lives in a larger city about 35 miles away and he is better able to take care of himself and could drive here if he needed to. I feel this is part of our prepping plans to have our sons in a safe place. With us. And they can work with us to make our place even more self sufficient than it already is.
 
Store had canned veggies ( good till 2020!) for .50 a can so I bought multiple cases each of green beans, corn, carrots, peas, potatoes and tomatoes. Also bought cases of canned beans. This will last us a couple of years.
Made the last payment on my FJ Cruiser so we don't have that bill now to pay each month
Paid off the mortgage last year.
Been taking any extra money and buying shiny metal lol Have 2 places to go to now and when one is out the other seems to have some
Getting out of any debt is my major project I've been working on now for a few years. It was great being able to pay for a new fridge right away when ours died on us a few months back.
And paying for the Cruiser to be serviced like it needed before winter hit. Such a satisfying feeling.

Working towards getting a metal roof on the place. The one now is almost 30 years old and will need replacing very soon
 
A Friend of mine who lives a couple of Houses down from me had a Friend who was killed in a Traffic Accident. The Guy who was killed was an avid Re-loader, and had all the Goodies. This Morning My Friend paid me a Visit, and brought in Two large Boxes, when I looked in the Boxes they were stuffed with all the Equipment needed to Re-load multiple Caliber Rounds, including new and used Brass, new Bullets, and various Cans of Powder. He asked if I wanted it, and I asked "how much", He said "you can have it all for Free, just take it off my Hands". Needless to say I did. This is one of those rare times when I came out Smelling like a Rose, and I didn't have to Step in anything to do it.

We also spent some time wiring in a permanent Hook Up for the Generator. Saturday I am going to have the Genny serviced and ready for Winter Power Outages.
 
Life is want it is ... I do not do preparations. (no longer)
We have food, herbs and knowledge and hope for the best. I have been a prepper for more years than I care to remember.
I have been wanting for the ball to drop for years...
What ever will be ... will be ...
Man, do I sound like a downer. lol
seek, learn and store.
 
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*Andi said:
Life is want it is ... I do not do preparations. (no longer)
We have food, herbs and knowledge and hope for the best. I have been a pepper for more years than I care to remember.
I have been wanting for the ball to drop for years...
What ever will be ... will be ...
Man, do I sound like a downer. lol
seek, learn and store.
Click to expand...

Would that be a Dr. Pepper? :p

Yep. I've come to take the same approach.

I've been at the pepper thing for nearly 10 years. I know I'll never have a big underground bunker nor a totally off-grid setup and I'm OK with that. I've learned so much about being self reliant. I can grow food, process it and raise animals. I do of course have some things put back that I can't produce myself. So I'll just keep learning what I can, apply what I learn, rinse and repeat. But I will also have a life that goes beyond that.

Life is for living, not hiding and waiting for something bad to happen.
 
UncleJoe said:
Life is for living, not hiding and waiting for something bad to happen.
Click to expand...

That's exactly why I prep, so I can live and experience an abundant life with the confidence that if something goes wrong in the world (or locally) I am prepared to see it through. The same reason I have several months of salary in my emergency savings account; because if you have resources a crisis becomes only an inconvenience.
 
Still waiting on my battery cables and clamps to turn up.

I know it's Christmas and there are a lot of parcels to deliver but I keep thinking I've been ripped off the longer I have to wait for them.

The baby chicks are growing well and it's a vast shame I can't eat eggs anymore still, they can till the garden, work the compost piles and poop till their little hearts content.
When they die they will be buried under a fruit tree.
 
Some more Amateur Radio supplies showed up taday. Some fer daily use, some fer storin away in a metal bucket fer say uncertain times. A few a us have also started using codes fer some messages. Yeah, goobernuts could break it real quick but it keep the average joes scratchin their heads anywho.
 
I had a sudden, large influx of all kinds of stuff.

I only mentioned it in the Mod forum at PS to let them know I would be a scarce for a little while, but I guess I'll go public.

AuntJoe's mom died 2 weeks ago. She was a pretty major hoarder. As we began the process of cleaning out the house I was astonished at the amount of stuff she had crammed in there. Here is a small sampling of a "Preparations Update."

Four 2' square totes of med supplies; several sizes of gauze pads, bandages of every type, Ace bandages, 8-10 bottles each of alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, several boxes of cotton swabs, bars of hard soap (70-80 at this point) and bottles of soft soap (12-15). But it's still being organized so who knows what the final count will be. Almost a full tote of OTC meds.
Tooth brushes. Over 100. She bought them in 10 packs; and just kept buying.
Small LED flashlights. I believe we're up near 40 of those.
Batteries. Ohhhhhh the batteries. AA , AAA and D. There are hundreds of them and they keep popping up as we go from room to room. I won't be too surprised if it ends up in the thousands.
Nail clippers. 30-40 pair and we're still finding them in oddball places. Lots of tweezers too.
Scissors. I think there's somewhere around 30 pair.
Office type supplies; pens, pencils, markers, highlighter's, paper clips, staples and staple guns. Office Max should be scared.
Boxes of tissues and packages of TP. Again, don't know how much it will be in the end
Zip-Loc storage and freezer bags in all sizes from snack to 2 gallon; along with plastic wrap, wax paper, parchment paper and aluminium foil. Let's just say, We will never have to buy any of these items ever again.
Canned food by the case.

OK. I think I'll stop for now. I'm getting dizzy again thinking about the monumental task that we've just begun to attack.
 
UncleJoe said:
I had a sudden, large influx of all kinds of stuff.

I only mentioned it in the Mod forum at PS to let them know I would be a scarce for a little while, but I guess I'll go public.

AuntJoe's mom died 2 weeks ago. She was a pretty major hoarder. As we began the process of cleaning out the house I was astonished at the amount of stuff she had crammed in there. Here is a small sampling of a "Preparations Update."

Four 2' square totes of med supplies; several sizes of gauze pads, bandages of every type, Ace bandages, 8-10 bottles each of alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, several boxes of cotton swabs, bars of hard soap (70-80 at this point) and bottles of soft soap (12-15). But it's still being organized so who knows what the final count will be. Almost a full tote of OTC meds.
Tooth brushes. Over 100. She bought them in 10 packs; and just kept buying.
Small LED flashlights. I believe we're up near 40 of those.
Batteries. Ohhhhhh the batteries. AA , AAA and D. There are hundreds of them and they keep popping up as we go from room to room. I won't be too surprised if it ends up in the thousands.
Nail clippers. 30-40 pair and we're still finding them in oddball places. Lots of tweezers too.
Scissors. I think there's somewhere around 30 pair.
Office type supplies; pens, pencils, markers, highlighter's, paper clips, staples and staple guns. Office Max should be scared.
Boxes of tissues and packages of TP. Again, don't know how much it will be in the end
Zip-Loc storage and freezer bags in all sizes from snack to 2 gallon; along with plastic wrap, wax paper, parchment paper and aluminium foil. Let's just say, We will never have to buy any of these items ever again.
Canned food by the case.

OK. I think I'll stop for now. I'm getting dizzy again thinking about the monumental task that we've just begun to attack.
Click to expand...

Sorry bout the loss. She sounds like a neat old gal! She kind of left yall a great gift.
 
Amish Heart said:
Sounds like a prepper to me
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No. A child of the depression era.

I had a customer that was like that too. She tried to have everything repaired no matter how worn out it was.

One example I remember was her electric space heater. On appearance alone I guessed it to be from the 50's. The element was deteriorated and the cord frayed almost to bare wire. She asked me if I could find and replace the worn out parts. It took some doing but I finally convinced her that it would be cheaper to replace the entire unit.
 
Sentry18 said:
Picked up some CR123A batteries on sale (for flashlights and other items), double checked my winter preps, tested some older food stores and plan to go hit a couple fleet & farm clearance bins today. Might even go to the the drug store to see if they have any Ibuprofen or other meds in their clearance bins. Don't have as much non-prescription stores as I would like. I hate paying full price for preps.
Click to expand...

When I worked in a hospital I had to replace all the batteries in all the AED (automatic external defibrillators).
They used CR123 batteries and each unit had 12 batteries and I had 20 units.
That was a lot of batteries.
They were never used they just sat in the AED for a year so they were still usable.
I would wait until the local police were having breakfast in the hospital and I would give them the batteries.
I did save a few for myself.
I could also get aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen from the pharmacy at hospital cost.
Usually 1000 tablets for between $4 to $10 a bottle.
 
Our latest preps included buying 10 x 10lt food grade storage containers as we are now down to 1 left that isn't filled. We also purchased a dwarf Lisbon lemon tree that we have on our back deck in a pot as well as 10 strawberry plants to go in the front yard gardens that are now planted. More garden vegetable seeds were purchased as well being 4 pkts of sweet corn seeds, 1pkt of silver beet and some spring onions. We have used almost half of the sweet corn seeds already in one of the back gardens with probably most of the rest being planted later this afternoon.
 
I happened upon some nice 10g crocks for fermenting, WITH lids. and I did a happy dance. It is so hard to find them at affordaple prices with lids anymore.

Canned and froze 60# of deer meat.

Took in abandonded jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins for the hogs. Converting holiday scraps into meat on the hoof.
 
My inventory is low on 40 S&W so I swapped tool heads on the press to load some. Double checking the power measure to make sure it had not changed from the last time (it had). A spring about 3/16" in diameter and 1 1/2" long twanged out from the bottom of the press. One of the end loops was gone. Fired up the desk computer, went to manufacturers website, expand the exploded part view so I could see it and sent off a email for a replacement spring. Received Email confirmation replacement spring was in today's mail.

Our youngest is married with two children. Starting on his first career and their money is tight. He collects orphaned brass at gun ranges. For every two pieces of 5.56 or 40 S&W brass he trades me I give him a reloaded round in return. That way he has the ammo to keep his firearm skills current and protect his family without squeezing their budget further.
 
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